Joe Ricketts' racist emails require more than lame Cubs response

Joe Ricketts appears at Wrigley Field before the Chicago Cubs face the Los Angeles Angels on April 12, 2017. (John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune)

In an email obtained by Splinter News, the father of Chicago Cubs Chairman Tom Ricketts wrote that he is tired of the “Political Correct, Multicultural and Diversity aspects of our culture.”

In another email, 77-year-old Joe Ricketts wrote: “I think Islam is a cult and not a religion.”

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And after reading a message forwarded to him that encouraged people like Joe Ricketts to “BE PROUD TO BE WHITE!” and used slurs like “Nigger,” “Kike,” “Camel Jockey,” “Beaner” and “Gook,” Ricketts responded by writing: “I like this.”

And Joe Ricketts himself? He released the following statement: “I deeply regret and apologize for some of the exchanges I had in my emails. Sometimes I received emails that I should have condemned. Other times I’ve said things that don’t reflect my value system. I strongly believe that bigoted ideas are wrong.”

To which I say: Yeah, right.

Nothing says white, male privilege quite like having your racist and Islamophobic worldview exposed and then thinking you can paper over it by saying, “Oh no, that’s not how I really feel.”

The emails contain racist conspiracy theories about former President Barack Obama being a radical Muslim, fear-mongering nonsense about Muslim invaders and textbook white supremacist talking points. And it’s clear that Ricketts was all-in.

One email sent to Ricketts carries the subject line “Why there are no Italian Muslims” and includes this comment from the sender: “sand diggin’ raghead bastards.” Ricketts reply was: “This is cute.”

Regarding Obama, Ricketts wrote: “My impression is that the President is more sympatric to Muslims than Christians/Jews. We are a Christian country and I feel like this is just a continuation of the assault on Christianity in America. My feeling are that I don’t like it.”

Joe Ricketts may not be involved in the day-to-day operation of the Chicago Cubs, but it was his money that allowed the Ricketts family to buy the team in 2009, and it’s his family that now needs to answer for their father’s easy embrace of outright racism.

A simple “This is not who we are!” from Cubs management and a “This is not who I am!” from the family patriarch isn’t going to cut it. If the organization wants all of its fans — not just the hopefully small portion that might share Joe Ricketts’ worldview — to believe the Cubs organization takes this seriously, how about an attempt to address the problem?

The hateful garbage Joe Ricketts was circulating and buying into does immeasurable harm to our society. It’s peddled by opportunists looking to amp up fear and resentment while deadening people’s ability to separate facts from lies.

The Ricketts family certainly has money to promote the media literacy needed to fight this tide of racist and xenophobic online rhetoric. And the younger Rickettses now have a case-in-point in their father who, if he actually regrets any of those emails (and that’s a big “if”), could help show others how easy it is to succumb to hate.

It’s an opportunity. And it’s almost a necessity for one of the most high-profile organizations in Chicago.

Whether the Rickettses like it or not, the curtain has been pulled back on a truly dark side of their family.

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They can say it has nothing to do with the Cubs all they want. But without taking serious action to address this level of intolerance, a lot of Cubs fans and Chicagoans in general will be left to wonder just how far the apples fell from the tree.